


The One Where Mark Tells the Story

by orphan_account



Category: letsplay, markiplier - Fandom, youtube - Fandom
Genre: F/M, markiplier imagines, markiplier preferences, tw: sickness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 09:04:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7795672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s sick. This time, it’s not because I forgot to put the milk away after I poured myself a bowl of Frosted Flakes. This time, it’s not because I accidentally locked my keys in the car again. This time, she doesn’t have a cold, the flu, or even food poisoning. She’s not sick of me and she doesn’t have something that will just go away in a matter of days and a few swigs of NyQuil. My fiancé could die before she even picks out her wedding dress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Where Mark Tells the Story

She’s sick. This time, it’s not because I forgot to put the milk away after I poured myself a bowl of Frosted Flakes. This time, it’s not because I accidentally locked my keys in the car again. This time, she doesn’t have a cold, the flu, or even food poisoning. She’s not sick of me and she doesn’t have something that will just go away in a matter of days and a few swigs of NyQuil. My fiancé could die before she even picks out her wedding dress.

I glance over at her, curled into herself at the computer. After researching for hours, she’s exhausted herself with the facts and treatments. She’s had three cups of tea. Orange spice, her favorite. Her well-manicured fingernails are now bitten down, the ruby red polish chipped and peeling. Papers are strewn around the desk she usually writes at, but instead of rough drafts, the crisp computer paper has signs and symptoms, numbers and addresses – even death rates.

“Babe?” I whisper. My voice makes her jump. I haven’t said a word since she plopped herself down in front of her laptop.

“I need to call my mom,” her voice comes out cracked, like she hadn’t seen water for days.

“Okay,” I nod. I stand up carefully, as to not disturb anything the news we received earlier has created.

“I’m not contagious,” she smirks. I look down at her and give her the same half-smile she’s giving me. We both know the comment was to lighten the situation, so we play along.

I walk to where her purse is placed. The table by the front door, next to the bowl I always forget to put the mail in. It crossed my mind that if I had just put our mail in the bowl like I was asked to do, we wouldn’t be in the situation we’re in right now.

“Catch,” I call. I throw her phone across the room to her. She narrowly catches it.

“You’re an asshole,” she rolls her eyes. She’s not serious, though. She doesn’t have the edge she would normally have after I threw something to her, instead of walking the few extra feet to simply hand it to her.

I take my seat next to her and begin to organize the tens of papers she’s printed out. Looking surprised, she begins to dial her mother’s number. Maybe being organized for the one time in my life will take this away from her. If I promise to put my dirty socks in the hamper and do the dishes more than once a week, this will all go away.

“Mom?” she responds to a hello on the other line. She’s put it on speaker.

“Honey?” My future mother-in-law asks. From the shakiness of her daughter’s voice, she knows something is wrong.

Normally composed, the love of my life takes in a deep breath. “Is Dad there? I have something to tell you guys.”

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

“Nothing,” she automatically responds. I shoot her a look and she winces.

“Tell me.”

“Is Dad there?” she asks again. Secretly, I know she hopes he’s not. She’s best friends with her dad, and the looming result of this could ruin him.

“No,” her mom answers, “but Sam is. Do you want me to get Sam?”

“Yeah,” she nods, “get Sam.”

Her mother tells her to hold on. She glances at me and reaches for my hand. I lace my fingers with hers and pull her to me. Scooting off of her chair, she places herself on my lap.

“Hello?” Sam’s voice fills the phone. I always had an affinity to my girlfriend’s younger brother. He wasn’t annoying, like most thirteen-year-olds. He cared about things that were important in life, like his sister. And video games.

“Hey, bud,” she smiles. Tears are beginning to form, but only in her words.

“What’s wrong? Mom said you sounded funny.”

“Yeah.” She sticks a nail in her mouth and begins to chew. I pull her hand away from her lips. She doesn’t need to further her assault on her fingers.

“Want me to put it on speaker?” her younger brother asks.

“Yeah,” my girlfriend grips the phone. She’s white-knuckling it so hard, for a moment I believe it’ll crumble in her hands.

“Kay,” Sam signals when both he and his mom can hear.

“I can’t do it,” she whispers to me.

“Yes you can,” I encourage. “It’ll be okay,” I kiss her cheek. I begin to rub her back, making her calm down. I feel the warmth of her skin through her shirt, and I can’t help but think what’s going on underneath the cream of her shell. Something that could’ve been avoided if I would’ve made the bed this morning.

“I don’t know how.” Tears are now starting to form in her eyes.

“Sweetheart?” Her mother’s voice fills the room. “Honey, you know you can tell me anything. We will always love you no matter what happens.”

“I have adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia,” she spits out. Although I’ve read the name for the past however many hours we’ve been researching it, although I’ve heard the doctor speak the words more times than I’d like in the short hour we were in his office, hearing her say them makes it true. Before, they were just words that made up a long name. Now, they’re a death sentence.

“Baby girl,” her mom’s voice cracks. “No, baby. No.”

“I just found out today.” The first tear falls down my fiance’s smooth face. “They said it was progressing at a rapid rate. They don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Silence comes from the other end of the phone. Her mother lets out a sob. Looking at me, my future wife begins to sob. For the first time today, she’s let tears fall. Driving to the doctor’s office, she knew it could happen: no tears. Getting the actual news from the doctor: no tears. Researching the death rate: no tears. Now, it’s all catching up to her. She knows she can never hit the rewind button. Realizing this myself, my eyes fill with tears along with hers.

“Hey,” Sam’s voice. “Is Mark with you?”

She nods even though he can’t see her. Handing me the phone, she places her head on my shoulder and continues to weep.

“Sam?” I ask into the phone. My voice sounds weird, like I’m underwater.

“It’s true?” he asks.

“Yeah.” I kiss the heartbroken girl on my lap, her salty tears wetting my lips.

“What…what is it? Like, does acute mean that it’s not that serious? And how much time does she have?”

I gulp.

“It’s just like leukemia. The normal kind. Cancer of the blood and bone marrow, you know? I don’t know what they mean by acute, but it doesn’t mean that it’s not serious. They found it in a stage three, but we don’t know how much time she has.”

“And you guys just found out today?”

“Yeah.”

“Is she okay?”

“No.”

“Are you?”

“Won’t be for a while, Sam.”

“She sounds pretty bad right now.” Sam comments on the cries coming from his sister. “So, I think I’m going to let you guys go. I have to go calm my mom down, okay? Uhh, just call when everything has settled in and everything. Tell my sister that I love her,” his voice cracks, “and that I’m sorry.”

“I will, Sam. Have your dad call us when he gets home, okay?”

“Will do,” Sam agrees. Then a click.

I end the call and throw the phone across the desk in anger. It falls to the floor in a thud, but neither of us react. I wrap my arms around the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with and we both cry together.

“I,” she gasps, “I need to talk…” She grabs the middle of my shirt as I stand up, lifting her with me. The look in her eyes is one of absolute terror – terror of not knowing what happens next. For a moment, I wonder if mine read the same.

“Sam is going to call back when your dad gets home, baby,” I try to soothe her. I know nothing I can even think of saying will make whatever she’s feeling go away, but I can attempt. I can make the bed, put the milk away, and put the mail in the bowl. It won’t make the cancer go away, but I can attempt.

Walking into the bedroom that we’ve shared for almost a year, I gently set her on our bed. Our bed that isn’t made. Our messy bed that has given the love of my life leukemia. Even though I’ve set her down on the bed, she still hangs on to my shirt and shoulder.

“Stay,” she speaks through her tears.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Lying in bed with my fiancé crying into my chest, tears running down my own face, I wonder when I fell in love with her. How I fell in love with her. Was there an exact moment? Did I just suddenly know? It was so long ago I can’t even remember. I’d like to, though. I’d love to be able to recall the time and place. What she was wearing, what I was wearing. How she turned me into a Nicholas Sparks novel instead of the emotionless brick wall I was supposed to be. I’d love to be able to find out when she figured out that she had the ability to make me do whatever she told me to, just by smiling and laughing.

“You’re crying,” she realizes. Sitting up, she sniffs. No longer sobbing, she quietly lets tears fall without wiping them away.

“Yeah,” I nod. Running my fingers through her hair, I pull her towards me so I can kiss her forehead.

She wipes my tears away instead of her own, which only makes me cry harder. I’ve always thought of myself as an ugly crier, but not her. She’s never had an ounce of ugly in her, this woman. Her eyes are bright, even through the pain and fear.

“This sucks,” she frowns.

“Yeah,” I nod again.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers as her eyes fill with tears again.

“Baby, don’t be sorry. Cry. Please, cry. Cry all you want.”

“No,” she shakes her head. “I’m sorry you have to put up with all of this. I yell at you all the time and get annoyed over stupid stuff. Then you asked me to marry you, only to find out that I’m going to die.”

“You’re not going to die,” I make her look at me. “And don’t ever apologize for being yourself. I wouldn’t have asked you to marry me if I didn’t know that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. You’re not going to die, my love.”

—

It was fall; mid-October. For weeks I had been teasing her about asking her to marry me. I would randomly get down on one knee in a special moment, maybe in front of her family, or in the parking lot where we met. I would look deeply into her eyes and grab her hand. Then, I would tie my shoe or pick up a nickel that someone had dropped. She would let out an aggravated grunt and stomp off, leaving me alone to laugh at my clever joke.

But, one day I finally got up the courage to ask. She wouldn’t expect it, because by now she had gotten the hang of being in the perfect moment, only to be let down because something on the ground had caught my attention.

We were picking out pumpkins back in Westchester County. She had convinced me to go to the pumpkin patch she grew up going to. The look on her face as we pulled up let me know that this was the day. No spoofs this time.

So, in the middle of a field overflowing with pumpkins, I got down on one knee, looked her deeply in the eyes and asked for her hand in marriage. I had asked her father three months before and he had gladly given his permission. In a matter of minutes, the rest of my life had started.

—

“You know what?”

“Hmm?” Her throat making vibrations through my chest let me know she was finally calming down.

“You make cancer crazy sexy.”

Letting out a loud laugh, the kind I aimed for, she snorted. “Crazy sexy cancer?”

“We’ll write books!”

“I’ve always wanted to do that. I made a list of things to do before I turn thirty. Maybe it’ll have to turn into a list of things to do before I die. Turning thirty or dying, whichever comes first.”

“You’re not going to die.”

“We all have dreams, Mark.”


End file.
